


To the Manner Born

by Gigi_Sinclair



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-21 01:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/893960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gigi_Sinclair/pseuds/Gigi_Sinclair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of Are's <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/44623">Hauntsverse</a>. The Duke of Crowborough tries to adjust to a new life. Set after "Domestic Life."</p>
            </blockquote>





	To the Manner Born

The Kostavas family ate their meals at the same table Lena Kostavas used to tell fortunes. One would have expected her to at least remove the paraphernalia, Philip, Duke of Crowborough, thought, his dinner plate abutting the marble pedestal of a shining crystal ball. The table was small. He could barely raise his arms to cut his meat without colliding with his lover Fred, on his right, or Fred’s father Eddie, on his left. Beneath the table, atop their feet, lay an enormous ancient dog, Yseult, who snored loudly and occasionally passed wind.

“This is lovely,” Fred said, lustily digging into his dinner. It was a generous overstatement. The meat—either pork or chicken, it was impossible to tell—was singed black on the outside yet retained a chilly centre. Philip had been used to unusual food, to strange or exotic or ill-advised food, but not to bad food. Since he’d moved in with Fred’s family, he was becoming something of a connoisseur.

“You are not eatink very much, my dear.” Lena looked at Philip with concner. She had long dark hair, threaded with strands of grey, and a jewelled headband she claimed gave her “ze second sight.” She spoke like somebody who would inhabit the world of Nosferatu, although Fred had told Philip she’d been born in Huddersfield and her maiden name was Eileen Dobbs. “You are not hungry?”

“Not really, thank you, Lena.” Philip lied. “Fred and I had rather a large lunch in town.”

“The Goat and Fig?” Eddie asked. He was a large man, olive-skinned and all but entirely bald.

“No, the Spotted Dog,” Fred said, around a mouthful of soggy carrots. “George Gregory sends his love.”

“Bastard. I curse his name.” Eddie spat—actually spat—into the glass of watery wine by his side, then proceeded to drink from it. Philip placed his cutlery neatly over his plate, which bore a touristy image of a Venetian canal. The gondolier was buried beneath lumpy, gristly gravy.

“I’m afraid I couldn’t eat another bite.” Philip, drawing on years of training and generations of breeding, forced a sincere-looking smile. “But thank you ever so much for the delicious meal.”

“Eh.” Lena shrugged, unflattered. “It is your turn to cook tomorrow.”

Philip’s smile didn’t waver. “Of course. How could I forget?” Something pressed against his thigh. Philip glanced down, to see Fred’s hand resting just above his knee. Fred squeezed, once, and said, “Any more of that fish, Mother?”

Fred’s family did not live in a painted caravan, as Philip had suspected that first night at Grantham’s, when he and Fred lay side-by-side on a luxurious bed and Fred told him he’d been born to gypsies. It hadn’t mattered. Philip had been so consumed by love—sudden and surprising and definitely unbidden—it made no difference whether Fred’s parents lived in a caravan or an igloo or a yurt in outer Mongolia. Philip would have followed him to the ends of the Earth.

He had, in fact, followed him to a tiny house in a crowded back street, a short walk from Blackpool Pier. And it was tiny. The house was barely suitable for a bachelor under-gardener, let alone four adults, the dog, and a coal-black cat with one ear, which seemed to take glee in tripping Philip as he headed downstairs to the outdoor toilet in the middle of the night. That was a revelation in itself. Philip hadn’t used an outdoor toilet since he was a very, very small child. It was no more pleasant than he remembered.

The most remarkable thing about the Kostavas house, however, was not its size or lack of amenities, but the fact that every surface was piled high with miscellanea. It wasn’t dirty per se, but it was hopelessly cluttered. One almost couldn’t move for piles of letters, dusty glassware, cheap jewellery, a collection of human skulls—why one would need any, let alone several, was beyond the scope of Philip’s imagination—and hundreds upon hundreds of books. Philip had tried to read one, once. It turned out to be a copy of _Tess of the d’Urbervilles_ with the last thirty pages torn out.

“We’re popping round to Nan’s for a drink.” Eddie placed his dirty dishes in a sink already overflowing with them and looked at Philip. “You coming?”

Philip affected a disappointed expression. “It’s terribly good of you to ask, but I’m afraid not.” Fred’s paternal grandmother had been, in her younger days, a renowned contortionist. Philip had been to visit her once. Nan Kostavas had insisted on serving tea with her feet and repeatedly called Philip “Linus,” until Fred, his voice devoid of any grief or embarrassment, said, “Linus is dead, Nan, remember? This is my Philip.”

“Philip.” Nan peered at him myopically. “Are you sure, Fred? Looks like Linus to me.” She picked up a spoon with her toes.”"More sugar, Linus?”

“I’m rather tired this evening,” Philip went on, as Eddie pulled on his bright red coat, more suitable for a circus ringmaster or a member of the Coldstream Guards, and Lena searched amidst the piles of useless trinkets for her hat. “I think I’ll go to bed.”

“Are you all right, love?” Fred looked at him. No, was the short answer. Philip hadn’t been all right since his estate manager had come to him and said, very apologetically, that they were close to bankruptcy. Philip had known it already. He’d just succeeded in ignoring it up until that point.

“I’m perfectly fine. Have a wonderful time.” Philip climbed the narrow creaking stairs to their bedroom.

It was in the attic, beneath a sloping ceiling upon which Philip hit his head every morning like clockwork. The bed itself was a third of the size of the one he’d had at home, but still filled the room almost to bursting. There was no room for a wardrobe, or even a chest of drawers. Fred and Philip’s clothes sat in piles against the wall, folded neatly by Fred, the former valet.

With no fireplace, the room was stone cold. Philip took off his trousers but kept his underclothes and his shirt. He slipped beneath the heavy mountain of moth-eaten blankets Fred had gathered after their first freezing night in the house, and tried not to cry. “A terribly lower-class habit,” his mother had told him once, when he was about three years old. _Well, Mother,_ he thought, _now I’m a terribly lower-class person._ He screwed his eyes shut and pulled the covers over his head.

A moment later, the door creaked open, and Fred’s weight dipped the over-soft mattress. “Take off your shoes if you’re getting in here,” Philip snapped.

“I am.” He was taking his clothes off, as well. There was a rustle of fabric and Fred’s warm, naked body slid in behind Philip. A heavy, hairy arm came over Philip’s chest and took Philip’s hand, lacing their fingers together.

“I thought you were going to see your grandmother.”

“I was worried about you. So is Lena. She thinks you’re ill.”

“If I eat any more of her atrocious food, I will be.” But that was unkind, and ungracious. Philip sighed and opened his eyes. He looked through the dark at the pockmarked wall and the ratty orange curtains covering the porthole-sized window. “It’s very good of your parents to take us in.” Incredibly, unreasonably good of them. They hadn’t batted an eye when Philip turned up at their house. They’d been happy to see him, even, almost as if they’d expected him. Fred had told him they would love him on sight, but Philip hadn’t believed it. Why should they?

“Hmm,” Fred murmured. He moved closer yet, his legs fitting in behind Philip’s. “But there’s a reason I moved away in the first place. We won’t be here forever, darling.” He kissed the back of Philip’s neck. “Once summer comes, I’ll find work on the pier and we can get our own flat.”

“I can find a job, as well.”

Fred had the grace to hesitate a moment, as if he was truly considering it, before he said, “No, I don’t want you to work.” The arm tightened around Philip’s middle, and Fred pressed his flaccid cock against Philip’s still clothed backside. “I want you at home, in bed, waiting for me to come back so you can fulfill my every wish.”

That was unreasonably good of him, as well, but it was typical of Fred. They both knew how useless Philip was in the real world. He had an Etonian education and a rather disappointing second from Oxford, and he was qualified for absolutely nothing. He still struggled to dress himself without Fred’s help. “You’re very kind to me, Fred.”

“You haven’t heard what I’m going to wish for yet.”

Philip rolled over in Fred’s arms. Fred smiled, that big, genuine, happy smile that never failed to melt Philip’s heart at the same time it filled him with envy. Philip was never that unreservedly happy. He’d never really been happy at all, not until he met Fred, who’d changed his life at the same time he saved it.

By the time Philip had arrived at the Grantham’s for their dismal costume party, months ago now, he had lost everything worth living for. He’d sold off nearly all the family furniture. His late mother’s jewellery was displayed in every pawn shop between Manchester and London. Hartleigh Castle, the family seat for generations, was on the verge of being seized by his creditors, and Philip was on the verge of putting a shotgun in his mouth and ending it all. The party was meant to be a quiet good-bye, a sort of subtle farewell tour. He’d even tried to make things right with Thomas Barrow. The bad business between them had always weighed rather heavily on Philip. As it turned out, Barrow hadn’t spent much time thinking of Philip at all. Rather, he had flourished in their years apart, becoming the heir-apparent to Carson’s fiefdom and sharing his bed with a beautiful, tempestuous boy worthy of Wilde. Everybody, it seemed, was better off than Philip, who couldn’t even afford a costume.

But then. But then Barrow had shown more kindness than Philip would have thought he possessed and sent over his friend Fred.

“I hear you’re looking for a man to take your clothes off,” a voice had said, as Philip knocked back another glass of champagne. He wasn’t in a celebratory mood, but there seemed to be nothing else on offer.

Looking up, Philip saw the voice belonged to a handsome man, taller than Philip and dark-haired with big, gentle eyes. He hadn’t used Philip’s courtesy title—Fred never did, not once—which meant he either didn’t know who Philip was, or he was very bold indeed. Or perhaps both. “I don’t think I can afford to pay a valet, actually,” Philip said. He couldn’t. The only servant left was the estate manager, and he was only there because he couldn’t find another job. Philip hadn’t given him money in months.

The man grinned. “I didn’t mean for a fee.” He slapped Philip on the shoulder and laughed, a loud, irrepressible sound that filled the room. Philip didn’t know what to say. “I’m Alfred Kostavas.” The man stuck out a hand. Philip shook it. “Call me Fred. I’m d’Abernon’s valet, but maybe not for long.” He flicked his eyes up and down Philip, unashamedly taking in Philip’s body. His grin grew, as if he liked what he saw. Philip shifted, suddenly self-conscious.

“Yes. Ah, well. Yes.” He cleared his throat. He wasn’t usually unbalanced by admiration, but it had been a very long time since any man had admired him, and none had ever done it so blatantly. “As I say, I’m afraid I’m not able to hire anybody at the moment.”

“Hm.” Fred nodded. The smile hadn’t faded, not even slightly. “I’ve got a vacant position, though. I’m in desperate need of a man in my bed. Would you be interested in applying?” He winked saucily. Philip laughed. He couldn’t help himself. Fred looked pleased with himself, as if he’d accomplished something truly worthy, and he said, “Come on. I bet your room’s a lot nicer than mine.”

It was, although they hadn’t done anything more than talk that first night, for hours and hours. When the black sky turned grey with the approaching dawn, Fred rolled over, on top of Philip, and kissed him. It was gentle and careful, as if Fred feared Philip might take fright. He didn’t. It was so wonderful, so strangely comfortable, that Philip opened his mouth for more. Fred murmured something unintelligible and slipped his tongue inside. They were only together for a moment, but when Fred pulled back, he was breathless, and Philip could feel heat coming to his own cheeks. “You’re the bee’s knees, darling,” Fred said. “I don’t fancy going away now.”

“Neither do I.” It was strange, how quickly the feeling had come upon him. Philip wasn’t like this. Even with Barrow, and O’Neill, and the other servants with whom he’d dallied, it had taken weeks of flirtatious glances before Philip felt interested enough to make a move, and it had been easy to leave them, once he’d had enough. The thought of leaving Fred at all, for any length of time, was abhorrent.

“I’ll come up with something.” Fred rubbed his nose against Philip’s. “You know what that is?”

“What?”

“It’s called an Eskimo kiss. I saw it in Nanook of the North.”

“How charming.” Philip’s head spun. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t be with a valet, not like this. He couldn’t be with anyone. He had nothing to offer.

“Don’t worry, darling.” Fred kissed him again, the English way, and ran his hand through Philip’s embarrassingly thinning hair. “I’ll fix something for us. You can count on me.”

Philip had, and Fred did. It wasn’t an ideal situation, and Philip missed his old life every day, but it was better than being dead, or on the breadline. And they were together. That meant a lot. That meant everything.

Philip looked at Fred, in the darkness of his parents’ guest bedroom, and sighed. “I love you, Fred.” He did, more than he’d ever loved anyone else. And he knew Fred loved him back.

He was the first person ever to do so. Philip’s mother had been icy and emotionless, his father distant to the point of absence. There had been a nanny, Philip dimly recalled, who’d shown him some affection in his infancy, but by the time Philip had been five years old, he was packed off to boarding school for a more than a decade of cold baths and harsh discipline and semi-enjoyable fumbling with inexperienced boys. Afterwards, there had been men who claimed to care for him, although Philip expected they cared far more for his position and his wealth. He didn’t mind. He only wanted them for their handsome faces and their gorgeous bodies. This was different.

Fred’s hands, warm despite the chill in the room, slid down Philip’s body, raising gooseflesh in their wake, and came to rest on the waistband of Philip’s undergarments.

“Fancy a bit of how’s your father while they’re away?” Fred asked, his teeth shining in the dim light. Lena and Eddie’s bedroom was on the other side of the tissue-thin wall. They made love nightly, in the most energetic and deafening way possible. Fred didn’t seem to care, but the thought of being overheard in turn made Philip’s stomach churn and any burgeoning erection wilt at once, like a poisoned flower. As a result, they’d been together only rarely since moving into the house.

“I don’t know.” Teasing did not come naturally to Philip, but he tried. “Perhaps, if you were to make it worth my while…”

“Worth your while?” Fred laughed. “Oh, yes, sir, Your Highness.” He rolled on top of Philip. “Anything you like, Your Highness.” I like you. Philip pushed Fred down, urging him lower and lower until he buried his face in Philip’s groin.

Being with Fred was wonderful. Philip had never experienced the like. He’d enjoyed sex, of course, once he was grown and able to choose men with something about them, but dramatics and pain—physical and otherwise—had seemed an unavoidable aspect of the whole business. There was none of that with Fred. Relations with Fred were simple and, dare he say it, fun. Philip had never heard anyone laugh during the act, but Fred did, a joyous, infectious sound that filled Philip’s ears and his heart until he, too, was laughing from sheer happiness.

They cuddled together afterwards, face-to-face and locked in one another’s arms. Fred kissed Philip, on the forehead and the cheeks, and rubbed their noses together like Nanook of the North. He reached back, keeping his other hand in Philip’s, and retrieved his cigarettes from the bedroom floor. Smoking in bed was plebeian, but when Fred offered the cigarette case to Philip, he took one and held it out for Fred to light.

“I know it’s not easy for you, Philip, darling.” Fred took a draw on his cigarette. Philip did the same, exhaling a plume of smoke towards the water-stained ceiling. The cigarettes were cheap, and left a flake of tobacco on Philip’s tongue. He removed it with the end of one finger.

“I only wish I could give you what you deserve.” Fred deserved cars, and jewellery, and exotic holidays. He deserved everything Philip had once lavished on men far less deserving than he, and it hurt Philip to think he’d never be able to provide them.

“I’ve got everything I want.” Fred squeezed his hand. The worst of it was that Philip knew he was completely sincere.

They lay together for a long while before Philip finally gave in to nature and got up to use the loo. “Just go in the chamber pot,” Fred said, burrowing further into the nest of blankets. He’d stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray on the floor. Philip did the same.

“I’d rather preserve some sense of dignity,” Philip replied. In any case, the chamber pot, a fragile antique with a picture of Napoleon painted on the inside, was too disconcerting to use in all but the direst of emergencies.

He pulled his dressing gown on over his shirt, which hung ravaged and unbuttoned, and pushed his feet into his slippers. As he opened the bedroom door, he heard a clattering from the kitchen. He crept down the narrow staircase, scanning from side to side for any trace of the cat. Instead, as he reached the last step, Yseult gave a bay of recognition from her place in the kitchen doorway, and Lena looked around.

She was standing at the stove, which was smoking alarmingly. She smiled widely, showing her two missing teeth, and, in the dulcet tones of Huddersfield, said, “You fancy a fry up, Philip?” She was drunk, clearly. It was the only time she ever let her accent slip.

“No, thank you,” Philip said, even as his stomach growled. He’d had next to nothing for dinner, he remembered, and lunch had been a dismal affair in a dismal pub. He stepped into the kitchen. Eddie lay passed out on the table, his head on his folded arms.

“That’s right, love. You just sit down there.” Philip decided the lavatory could wait, at least a little longer. Not even Lena could ruin a fry-up, surely. She approached, pushing a mountain of fried potatoes, mushrooms and wobbly eggs onto a cracked plate in front of him. “You know, I seen you before you come here. In the ball, like.” She nodded at the crystal ball. “Didn’t see you exactly, but I seen a posh bloke with a black eye.” Philip blinked in surprise. He had sported a black eye when he’d first met Fred, courtesy of Thomas Barrow’s cantankerous catamite. “I said to Eddie, I said, that’s the man for our Fred. He’s the one who’ll bring him back to us. They was meant to be together, I can tell.” Lena reached out, her hand landing on Philip’s forearm. Her nails were talons, painted a deep shade of red that would have shocked him in his previous life. “I said, he may not look like much now, Eddie, but he’s one of us. He’s part of our family.”

Philip blinked. The tears had re-appeared out of nowhere, suddenly threatening to spill over. “Thank you.” Philip gritted his teeth and forced them back. “Thank you, Lena, that’s very kind.” No one had ever said anything like that to him before, not even members of his own family. It was too close to sentiment, and among his people, sentiment was to be avoided at all costs.

Lena squeezed his arm. “You eat up, now, and I’ll get the kettle on.” Philip picked up his fork and dug in.

***

Jimmy had always wanted to see Blackpool.

“It’s awful,” Thomas had said, with the uppity air he sometimes affected now that the success of “Monsieur Barreaux” and his fortune telling business meant they were somewhat well-to-do. Well-to-do enough to have a little house, detached no less, and a woman in three times a week to do the cooking. Her culinary skills weren’t patch on Mrs. Patmores, but they far surpassed Thomas’, so Jimmy didn’t complain.

“And you’re a terrible snob,” Jimmy had replied. “But I love you anyway. And I want to go to Blackpool.” It worked. The next time a summer heat wave rolled around and London became too stifling to bear, Thomas and Jimmy hopped on a train north.

Along with about a million other people, it seemed. The pier was swarming, a hive of humanity the likes of which Jimmy had only seen occasionally, in the heart of London. Jimmy drank in the sights, the games and the tents and the hundreds upon hundreds of people, and said, “I fancy an ice cream, don’t you?”

Thomas rolled his eyes. “Stay here.”

Jimmy did. He stood, letting the wave of people ebb and flow around him. They ignored him, except for one, a man in a grey suit and a top hat who bumped against Jimmy’s elbow. “Oh, I say, I’m terribly sorry.” Jimmy looked over. The man’s accent was top drawer, but the suit was at least a decade out of date, and it had been repaired many times. Expertly repaired, but repaired none the less. “I say, I wouldn’t normally do this, but I’ve just come from the most marvellous fortune teller. Absolutely unbelievable. Madame Lena, in the yellow tent at the end of the pier. I didn’t believe in it before, but she’s convinced me. It’s absolutely incredible. She told me things no one else could possibly have known.”

He glanced at the man’s face. A sudden flash of recognition passed through Jimmy. They’d met before, Jimmy was certain of it, but he couldn’t remember where.

If the man recognized Jimmy, he didn’t show it. He pressed a card into Jimmy’s hand. Madame Lena. Fortunes Told. Medium Shows twice nightly. Off-season rates. “She’s in the yellow tent,” the man repeated. “You can’t miss her.”

“I don’t need a medium,” Jimmy said. He had his own. But the man had already moved on, insinuating himself between two young ladies further down the pier. “I wouldn’t normally do this,” Jimmy heard him say, “but I’ve just come from the most marvellous fortune teller…”

“Here.” Thomas appeared, two ice cream cones in hand. They were already beginning to melt, dripping down Thomas’ hands and splattering on the pier beneath them. “Eat fast.”

Jimmy tossed the card aside, onto the ground with dozens like it, and licked his ice cream.


End file.
